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Saturday, 1 October 2016

Mercury joins Earth in tectonically active club

Mercury is known for being the smallest planet in the Solar System, but, according to NASA, it's also the only one besides Earth that's tectonically active. Unlike Venus and Mars, which are basically cold, dead rocks, images from the unmanned MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft show that Mercury has small, cliff-like formations that suggest that the planet is contracting, which means that it has a hot, cooling interior.